The Industrial IoT Blog
IIoT Insights by Henry Costa
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Why UNS Is Important in an IIoT Journey: Real Lessons from the Field
Read more: Why UNS Is Important in an IIoT Journey: Real Lessons from the FieldLet’s get right to it: if you want to make your plant smarter, faster, and truly connected, you need a Unified Namespace (UNS). I’ve spent over two decades in digital manufacturing, and I can tell you — the difference between…
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MQTT or OPC UA? My Real-World Take
Read more: MQTT or OPC UA? My Real-World TakeSo, I’ve lost count of how many times someone’s asked me, “Henry, should I use MQTT or OPC UA for my manufacturing project?” The truth is, I’ve been on both sides of that decision — sometimes sweating over a flaky…
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Ignition 8.3: Leveling Up Industrial IoT
Read more: Ignition 8.3: Leveling Up Industrial IoTHere’s what really stands out to me: Ignition 8.3 isn’t just a “point release.” It’s a shift in how we think about deploying and managing automation software. The core lesson? If you want to run at enterprise scale — multiple…
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OPC UA: The Bridge to Smarter Plants
Read more: OPC UA: The Bridge to Smarter PlantsI still remember the first time I tried to connect a brand-new packaging line to our old MES, back in the late 2000s. It was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole: the PLC spoke one…
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When Ignition 8.3 Broke the Ice
Read more: When Ignition 8.3 Broke the IceWhen I walked into the Ignition Community Conference this year, I could feel the buzz, and not just from the coffee. Everyone was talking about the new 8.3 release, and honestly, I was just as curious as anyone. After all…
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Getting Started with SAP xMII: My Journey from Web to Factory Floor
Read more: Getting Started with SAP xMII: My Journey from Web to Factory FloorI still remember the first time I walked into a real factory as an IT guy. It was 2005, and up until then, my world was all about web development — PHP, JavaScript, databases, and the usual chaos of internet…
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From Web Pages to the Shop Floor: My Jump Into Manufacturing
Read more: From Web Pages to the Shop Floor: My Jump Into ManufacturingI still remember the first time I walked into a real factory, not just as a visitor, but as someone expected to connect those noisy machines to SAP. I came from years of web development — building e-commerce and government…